St. Thomas Baroque Group to Open Season Feb. 8 With Works Written by Three Great Composers ‘in Their Callow Youth’

The Society for the Doctrinal Affectation of Baroque Music opens its 2014 season with a free concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, in St. Mary’s Chapel, located on the far-western end of Summit Avenue on the campus of the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas.

The 15th annual concert features the youthful music of three great composers: Bach, Haydn and Beethoven. Works will include the rarely heard Beethoven mandolin pieces composed in the thrall of affection for a patroness; Haydn’s early masterful effort at the string quartet form, here in a world-premiere arrangement for guitar and piano; and recently discovered organ chorales of the teenage Bach.

Haydn

Musicians are David Jenkins, organist and pianist, and Christopher Kachian, guitarist. Jenkins is liturgical music director at the School of Divinity and teaches organ for the university’s Music Department. Kachian is professor of music at the university.

A third society member, St. Thomas art historian Michelle Nordtorp-Madson, will present minilectures, with slides, about art from the Baroque period in Europe.

The society’s program notes explain that it “is dedicated to stylish performances of early musical artifacts with nonconventional instrumentation. The society’s artistic mission is to arouse the elevated passions of modern audiences through elegant interpretations informed by the latest in historical discovery.”

Bach

The concert is co-sponsored by the School of Divinity and the university’s Art History and Music departments. More information about the society is available at (651) 962-5858.